Not Sniper but definitely vintage!

[Flint62a1]

Went to the gun club today, Tuesday, and was treated to a couple hours of fly overs by a Mustang, a Spitfire, and a Zero. At one point the P-51 and the Zero had a dogfight. I don't know why this would be taking place on a Tuesday afternoon on the east end of Long Island. Near as I could make out they were flying in the vicinity of the Calverton National Cemetery.
You'll have to excuse the crappy photos, but they were a loooong way off, and

I had a 300mm lens on the camera too!

 

[308pirate]

Holy shit that had to be COOL AF!

 

[308pirate]

Speaking of which, Capt Tom Moore gets a fly past from Royal Air Force pilots in a Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire.

Listen to those Merlins.................aural sex


Love the Captain's fist pump as they fly past overhead. It's something a grunt would do.......

 

[Flint62a1]

Holy shit that had to be COOL AF!

It was, we didn’t do much shooting. Lots of watching

 

[RTH1800]

Those are the best pictures of a P51/Zero dogfight I have seen all day.

 

[pmclaine]

Jealous of your experience.

Glad you were able to capture it and share.

 

[pmclaine]

It starts off sounding like a bunch of rocks in a bucket but it becomes music to the ears....



I understand the initial prop turns are by design to evacuate "leak down" oil from the cylinders so as to not hydro lock anything under full load. Same idea as guys turning the prop by hand.

Awesome to hear those pushrods running valves.

 

[sandwarrior]

It starts off sounding like a bunch of rocks in a bucket but it becomes music to the ears....



I understand the initial prop turns are by design to evacuate "leak down" oil from the cylinders so as to not hydro lock anything under full load. Same idea as guys turning the prop by hand.

Awesome to hear those pushrods running valves.

I would say by the look of that particular aircraft it's an F4U-1D. I love when an R-2800 gets wound up and does a flyby, it sounds like a pissed off bumblebee!

Added: One of my favorites is an A-26 moving as fast as they can. Which is pretty fast!

Added II: One of the things I like to do is see how many variants I can pick out. One of the videos that comes up when the startup is over is "11 Corsairs" at an airshow. You can see various -1's as they have three-bladed props. And, of the four-bladed props, do they have one chin inlet or two? That's the difference you can see right away between -4's and -5's. Also, there is one dark glossy sea-blue with a big bulb on the right wing and what looks like a fuel tank under the left. Those two items are what makes a -5N night fighter. Those are the radar. Although, I can't get a good bright look at the chin to see the two inlets.

There were 2500 engineering changes to that aircraft during it's service life.

 

[308pirate]

It starts off sounding like a bunch of rocks in a bucket but it becomes music to the ears....



I understand the initial prop turns are by design to evacuate "leak down" oil from the cylinders so as to not hydro lock anything under full load. Same idea as guys turning the prop by hand.

Awesome to hear those pushrods running valves.

 

[pmclaine]

Looks like air show at Beth Page, Long Island scheduled for Memorial Day is cancelled and will be virtual.

They must have been filming the planes for the "virtual" show.

This shit has to end.

 

[Flint62a1]

My understanding is the planes are housed at Brookhaven airport. The Zero has a Pratt Whitney engine in it. It's a model 21 which ia a rare model. Supposedly the Spitfire is an actual refugee from the Dunkirk beaches. My shooting buddy is a crazed modeler that builds only warbirds. So he made a few calls to his friends and came up with this info.
Yes the Air Show is canceled this year, and apparently the Airpower Museum won't even be open. That's particularly disappointing as a trip there on Memorial Day weekend is just awesome. I have to dig in my photos to see what I have from there. These are about 10 years old

 

[sandwarrior]

You know what's interesting is the P-51 of that era totally outclasses either of the other two. Yet to watch them in demonstration, they still look pretty formidable. The same with the Hurricane/Spitfire doing a flyby for Capt. Tom Moore. Both of those aircraft are totally outclassed by early WWII, but they are haulin' ass! From March of 1944 when the P-51D Mustang first saw combat it was the best fighter introduced. By February of 1945, it was obsolete. It just had way more numbers than better fighters being pushed out Axis factory doors at the time. I'm talking about the whole FW-190 "D" series and lastly the TA-152. The ME-262 was faster, but had drawbacks. Slow take-offs and landings made it vulnerable. It was so fast it bypassed B-17's in a flash. Enough P-51's or P-47's could bullets in front of it and deflect their attack. Tactics, not capabilty were the key to our success.

Yet, the opposite was thought and planned for. The newly minted U.S. Air Force thought so highly of the Mustang, they deployed them to Korea. Where it showed pretty quickly, that Mustangs were the wrong choice. Even the first jets that were ready were not superior to Soviet made Mig 15's. Not until the D model of F-86 did we achieve air superiority.

 

[308pirate]

The same with the Hurricane/Spitfire doing a flyby for Capt. Tom Moore. Both of those aircraft are totally outclassed by early WWII

The Spitfire was continuously upgraded throughout the war, and some of those upgrades were significant. I think it maintained its superiority for the roles it was meant to perform all the way to the end.

 

[sandwarrior]

The Spitfire was continuously upgraded throughout the war, and some of those upgrades were significant. I think it maintained its superiority for the roles it was meant to perform all the way to the end.

Sorry, THAT variant of the Spitfire. It was a Mk. V that was doing the flyby. The last ones from WWII, the Mk XXI, was a whole 'nuther animal. However, I was reading the last variant to see actual combat was the Mk. XIV with the Griffon engine. As you noted a lot of changes in between too.

 

[ColinW]

Growing up in an aviation family, I was always around aircraft and to this day, there's few sounds sexier than the sound of those radial engines used in those old warbirds!

 

[sandwarrior]

Growing up in an aviation family, I was always around aircraft and to this day, there's few sounds sexier than the sound of those radial engines used in those old warbirds!

Some make me wonder though. The Wright R-2600 (B-25) always sounds like a bag full of hammers. Great engine, but I always pick up the 'ring' when they go overhead.

Added: Some of the sounds that also surprised me were P-40's and the V1710. On the ground they sound like little more than those four cylinder jeep enginess. You don't hear/feel the power until they power up for takeoff.

There was an A-1(H?) that they used as a hack out in NAS Fallon. Our farm was on the west side of the valley and we could hear that thing take off from the east side of the valley. It sounded like an old cat dozer. Like you could hear each individual cylinder firing. The A-4's, A-6's, and A-7's would be around the valley and running down B-16 in ten minutes. It took that Skyraider 30 minutes to get around. 140 kts. climbing, level or falling. lol

 

[Zeroit]

My understanding is the planes are housed at Brookhaven airport. The Zero has a Pratt Whitney engine in it. It's a model 21 which ia a rare model. Supposedly the Spitfire is an actual refugee from the Dunkirk beaches. My shooting buddy is a crazed modeler that builds only warbirds. So he made a few calls to his friends and came up with this info.
Yes the Air Show is canceled this year, and apparently the Airpower Museum won't even be open. That's particularly disappointing as a trip there on Memorial Day weekend is just awesome. I have to dig in my photos to see what I have from there. These are about 10 years oldView attachment 7325287View attachment 7325285View attachment 7325286

I had the privilege of flying in a P-51 around 1990, it was based out of Findlay Ohio, It was at buckeye valley airport at the time I flew in it cost me about 200 or 250.00 at the time.
The runway was very short north to south, prevailing winds are out of the west.
Pilot was awesome, when he throttled it up it put you back in your seat, ate up almost no runway.
Did some barrel rolls and other things.
I had a picture on my office wall it got destroyed, I have looked through about a couple thousand pictures I can't find the pictures or negatives.
It was glamorous....? Something.
The "passenger"seat was where the original radio equipment was.

A pilot I used to fly with owned a P-51 in the 60s said he bought it for about 10,000.
And sold it because he couldn't afford the fuel, throttled up it probably burns 50 gallon an hour (guessing) in perspective our 16 cylinder diesel locomotives about 4000+ hp
Only burn 80 gallons at full throttle (notch 8).